1. Preface

“The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.” -Thorstein Veblen

Origin of the name:

“The Zeitgeist Movement” (TZM) is the existing identifier for the Social Movement described in the following essays. The name has no relevant historical reference to anything culturally specific and is not to be confused/associated with anything else known before with a similar title. Rather, the title is based upon the semantic meaning of the very terms, explicitly. The term “Zeitgeist” is defined as the “general intellectual, moral and cultural climate of an era.” The Term “Movement” simply implies “motion” or change. Therefore The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) is an organization which urges change in the dominant intellectual, moral and cultural climate of the time.

Document Structure:

The following text has been prepared to be as concise and yet comprehensive as possible. In form, it is a series of essays, ordered by subject in a manner which works to support a broader context. While each essay is designed to be taken on its own merit in evaluation, the true context resides in how each issue works to support a larger Train of Thought with respect to the most efficient organization of human society. It will be noticed by those who read through these essays in a linear fashion that a fair amount of overlap exists with certain ideas. This is deliberate as such repetition and emphasis is considered helpful given how foreign some of the concepts might seem to those with no prior exposure to such material.

Also, since only so much detail can be afforded to maintain comprehension given the gravity of each subject and how they interrelate, great effort has been made to source relevant 3rd party research throughout each essay, via footnotes and appendices, allowing the reader to follow through with further study as the interest arises.

The Organism of Knowledge:

As with any form of presented research we are dealing with serially generated data composites. Observation, its assessment, documentation and integration with other knowledge, existing or pending, is the manner by which all distinguishable ideas come to evolve. This continuum is important to understand with respect to the way we think about what we believe and why, for information is always separate in its merit from the person or institution communicating or representing. Information can only be evaluated correctly through a systematic process of comparison to other physically verifiable evidence as to its proof or lack thereof.

Likewise, this continuum also implies that there can be no empirical “Origin” of ideas. From an epistemological perspective, knowledge is mostly culminated, processed and expanded through communication amongst our species. The individual, with his or her inherently different life experience and propensities, serves as a custom processing filter by which a given idea can be morphed. Collectively, we individuals comprise what could be called a “Group Mind” which is the larger order social processor by which the effort of individuals ideally coalesce. The traditional method of data transfer through literature, sharing books from generation to generation, has been a notable path of this Group Mind interaction, for example.[1]

Issac Newton perhaps put this reality best with the statement: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”[2] This is brought up here in order to focus the reader on the critical consideration of data – not a supposed “Source” – as there actually is no such thing in an empirical sense. Only in the temporal, traditional patterns of culture, such as with literary credits in a textbook for future research reference, is such a recognition technically relevant.There is no statement more erroneous than the declaration that: “This is my idea.” Such notions are byproducts of a material culture that has been reinforced in seeking physical rewards, usually via money, in exchange for the illusion of their “proprietary” creations. Very often an ego association is culminated as well where an individual claims prestige about their “credit” for an idea or invention.

Yet, that is not to exclude gratitude and respect for those figures or institutions which have shown dedication and perseverance towards the expansion of knowledge itself, nor to diminish the necessity of importance of those who have achieved a skilled, specialized “expert” status in a particular field. The contributions of brilliant researchers, thinkers and engineers such as R. Buckminster Fuller, Jacque Fresco, Jeremy Rifkin, Ray Kurzweil, Robert Sapolsky, Thorstein Veblen, Richard Wilkinson, James Gilligan, Carl Sagan, Nicola Tesla, Steven Hawking and many, many more researchers, past and present, are quoted and sourced in this text and serve as part of the larger data composite you are about to read. Great gratitude is expressed here towards all dedicated minds who are working to contribute to an improving world.Yet, once again, when it comes to the level of understanding, information itself has no origin, no loyalty, no price tag, no ego and no bias. It simply manifests, self-corrects and evolves as an organism in and of itself through our collective “Group Mind” to which we are all invariably a component vehicle.

That understood, “The Zeitgeist Movement” claims no origination of any idea it promotes and is best categorized as an activist/educational institution which works to amplify a context upon which existing/emerging scientific findings may find a concerted social imperative.

Websites and Resources:

The Following 10 Websites are officially related to The Zeitgeist Movement’s global operations:

The Media Project Site hosts and links to various audio/visual/literary expressions of TZM Members. Users donate their work for posting and it is often used as a resource Toolkit for flyer graphics, video presentations, logo animations and the like.

[1] In Carl Sagan’s work “Cosmos”, he stated with respect to the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, noted as the largest and most significant library of the ancient world: “was as if the entire civilization had undergone some self-inflicted brain surgery, and most of its memories, discoveries, ideas and passions were extinguished irrevocably.“ Cosmos, Sagan, Books, New York, 1980, Chapter XIII